L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Graphic
Art of the Indians of Canada

[This
text was originally published in 1907 by the Bureau of American Ethnology
as part of its Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico .
It was later reproduced, in 1913, by the Geographic Board of Canada.
The work done by the American Bureau was monumental, well informed and
incorporated the most advanced scholarship available at the time. In
many respects, the information is still useful today, although prudence
should be exercised and the reader should consult some of the contemporary
texts on the history and the anthropology of the North-West Indians
suggested in the bibliographic introduction to this section. The articles
were not completely devoid of the paternalism and the prejudices prevalent
at the time. While some of the terminology used would not pass the test
of our "politically correct" era, most terms have been left unchanged
by the editor. If a change in the original text has been effected it
will be found between brackets [.] The original work contained long
bibliographies that have not been reproduced for this web edition. For
the full citation, see the end of the text.]

With
the tribes N. of Mexico the arts that may be comprehended under the
term graphic are practically identical with the pictorial arts; that
is to say, such as represent persons and things in a manner so realistic
that the semblance of the original is not entirely lost. Graphic delineations
may be (1) simply pictorial; that is, made to gratify the pictorial
or aesthetic impulse or fancy; (2) trivial, intended to excite mirth,
as in caricature and the grotesque; (3) simply decorative, serving to
embellish the person or object to which they are applied; (4) simply
ideographic, standing for ideas to be expressed, recorded, or conveyed;
(5) denotive, including personal names and marks of ownership, distinction,
direction, enumeration, etc.; and (6) symbolic, representing some religious,
totemic, heraldic, or other occult concept. It is manifest, however,
that in very many cases there must be uncertainty as to the motives
prompting these graphic representations; and the significance attached
to them, even where the tribes using them come directly under observation,
is often difficult to determine.

The
methods of expression in graphic art are extremely varied, but may be
classified as follows: (1) Application of colour by means of brushes
and hard or soft points or edges, and by developing the form in pulverized
pigments; (2) engraving, which is accomplished by scratching and pecking
with hard points; (3) indenting and stamping where the surfaces are
plastic; (4) tattooing, the introduction of colouring matter into designs
pricked or cut in the skin; (5) textile methods, as in weaving, basketry,
beadwork, featherwork, and embroidery; and (6) inlaying, as in mosaic,
where small bits of coloured material are so set as to form the figures.
The figures are drawn in outline simply, or are filled in with colour
or other distinctive surfacing. The elaboration or embellishment of
sculptured or modelled figures or images of men and beasts by adding
details of anatomy, markings, etc., in colour or by engraving, thus
increasing the realism of the representation, comes also within the
realm of the graphic as here defined. In recent times, as the result
of contact with the whites, much progress has been made by some of the
native tribes in the pictorial art; but the purely aboriginal work,
although displaying much rude vigour, shows little advance toward the
higher phases of the art. Aboriginally, there was little attempt at
effective grouping of the subject save as required in decoration, and
light and shade and perspective were entirely unknown. Portraiture and
landscape belong apparently to much more advanced stages of culture
than have been reached by any of the northern tribes. When the delineations
are devoted to the presentation of non-symbolic ideas merely, as in
pictography and denotive devices, there is a tendency in frequently
recurring use to progressive simplification; the picture as such has
no reason to be perpetuated, and this simplification in time reaches
a stage where a part takes the place of the whole, or where semblance
to the original is entirely lost, the figure becoming the formal sign
of an idea. The graphic art of the northern tribes, however, shows no
very significant progress in this kind of specialization, unless modern
alphabets, like those of the Micmac, or certain inscriptions of somewhat
problematical origin, as the Grave Creek Mound tablet and the Davenport
tablet (Farquharson), are considered.

Graphic
delineations are most extensively employed by the tribes in pictography
examples of which, engraved or painted on rock surfaces, are found in
nearly every section of the country. Similar work was executed by many
of the tribes on dressed skins, on birch-bark, and on objects of wood,
ivory, bone, horn, and shell. The delineation of life forms in decorative
and symbolic art is hardly less universal than in simple pictography,
and is especially exemplified in the work of the more advanced peoples,
as the pottery of the mound builders and Pueblos, the utensils and the
carvings of the tribes of the N. Pacific coast, and ceremonial costumes,
and walls and floors of sacred chambers among various tribes. The graphic
work of the [Inuit] has a peculiar interest, since it seems to have
been somewhat recently superposed upon an earlier system in which simple
geometrical figures predominated, and is much more prevalent where these
people have been for a long time in contact with the whites, and more
especially with the Athapascan and other Indian tribes skilled in graphic
work (Hoffman). A special feature of the art of the [Inuit] is the engraving
of hunting scenes and exploits of various kinds on objects of ivory
and bone-works paralleled among the Indian tribes in the S. by such
examples as the Thruston tablet (Thruston, Holmes), the Davenport tablet
(Farquharson), and the battle and hunting scenes of the Plains tribes
(Mallery, Mooney).

Source:
James WHITE, ed., Handbook of Indians of Canada
, Published as an Appendix to
the Tenth Report of the Geographic Board of Canada
, Ottawa
, 1913, 632p., pp. 183-184.